Speaching to a Screaching halt!

M had to turn in a technology project for Tuesday morning. He had to make a motorized toy. A motorized toy? One with a switch? I didn't know where to start...What do I know about building motorized toys at the eleventh hour? Let alone where to shop for motorized bits and peices. A padded push up bra...you bet , but a motorized toy...and with one and a half hours till shops close?

 We eventually found  a motor kit from a toy store, it must be a design from a Greek shipping company because I couldn't understand the instructions -It was all Greek to me!!!! Eventually a small odd, polystyrene boat emerged with  it's motor clinging on to it from a dizzy height.

 It went off to school barely dry. As we arrived at school the other children came baring their huge enormous polystyrene boats with massive propellers and serious motors, the dads had been rather busy...I thought I detected some dark ringd under some of their eyes. I wanted to give Roger a kick in the pants right then and there. I can see I am going to have to man up and get technical.

Apparently the motor lasted during the oral where he had to explain how he made it, but failed dismally when tested in the school swimming pool. M, good naturedly spoke about how all the other boats had a full on war...crashing into each other and charging around the pool. My heart broke knowing how he must have stood on the edge of the pool holding his failure of a boat that didn't even stand upright. I had a steely resolve form somewhere in my molten core...I'm taking those dads on...Just you wait Henry Higgins just you wait!!!

Well that was Monday night taken care of. So Tuesday rolled around, and that evening I had to do my first toastmasters PREPARED speech. It was M ( girl) 's dance recital the whole weekend, D had a cricket match, I had a 6am meeting with Roger about finalising the divorce, but I musn't blame as there was a great deal of procrastination involved as well.

I tried to prepare during my two free periods at school, I had something scratchily thrown together. The topic was myself so I was quite familiar with the topic.As the Seargeant at arms banged the gravel and declared the meeting open, the pit of my stomach wasn't doing very well. I sat there wishing I was a little more prepared. Eventually my name was called , it was time to come up and give my speech. I had between four and six minutes to complete it.

I decided to talk about names and how they may shape our lives. I had a great introduction and just before I reached the part about talking about myself, which was the whole point of the talk,the green light came on, indicating I had two minutes to wrap up the speech. I hadn't even begun yet. I was free falling from a high point in speechy abysses and the landing wasn't going to be a pretty sight. I pulled the emergency concluding paragraph and finished with a lacklustre "Thank you."

The comments and evaluations were great! Here are some of them. "Well done! I enjoyed the style you presented the speech, you looked very relaxed.Look forward to your next speech!!" " A good introduction to yourself, very interesting and amusing." " Very good start. May be you could have said a bit more about yourself (ah someone sharp and on the ball) and project your voice a bit more." "Very well spoken and structured, you brought humour in well, dealt with time pressure with ease. At times your voice is a bit soft."

Excellence was something I strove for when I was a stay at home mom and still married. If the children had to dress up, I really went to town and they had amazing costumes, it there was a project to be done, it was always amazing, Roger and I were a good team, he always could figure out the woodworking and technical stuff and I always had the ideas, art and design as part of my porfolio It became a family culture, we always tended to do things well.

After moving back to South Africa and the subsequent upheavals in our lives we lost that. Just getting by seemed a bit like a miracle and I found distractions that didn't involve the children. I miss those times and feel it is time, to raise the bar in the family again. To strive for excellence in all that we do as we have done in the past, to do our very best.

So it's time for me to up my game as a mom. I have become sloppy about so many things. Excellence begins with me. My next speech is coming up in October. I have been having some EXCELLENT ideas. Which is great. Cause excellence is coming back to this home. I just wonder how I am going to convince the kids about letting him come to stay...or is it she?

Drowning

I know I shouldn't do it but I do. I compare myself continually to Roger. It's as if I am holding an unofficial competition with him. Guess who always comes stone last? Me! Today I discovered he is studying to do his PHD. He is going to be Dr Dr.... I just can't compete with him...but how do I stop?

I am desperate to prove to myself and those in my past I have appointed as judge and jury over my worth that I am not the useless amount to nothing person they all thought I was. That I wasn't toxic. That I shouldn't have been cast aside. Each time I squeeze into my snug jeans I berate myself. Roger lost his boep and goes to the gym regularly. I am studying a Mickey Mouse coaching course, and he is doing his PHD.

This unofficial competition is relentless, the rules unfair. I have to be better than him in all aspects to prove to myself I am worth anything. To prove that I was not worth casting aside. To prove that he made a horrible mistake leaving me.

I guess my rules for being an OK person are all crazy making. I'm looking for affirmation outside of myself. The sensible rule book always says comparing yourself to others is not helpful. How does ones self esteem ever recover from spending far too many years with someone who thought you weren't worth building a marriage with and sharing a life together? Someone who found the girls at work far more worthy of his attention? How soon into the marriage did he decide I wasn't worth anything or at least I wasn't worth staying faithful to?

Tonight isn't a good night for this girl. It doesn't help when your teenager says "I hate you!" as some teenagers are prone to do when their phone has been confiscated for a while and you just discovered you have been holding the body of their phone hostage rather than the whole phone and that the SIM, which is really the brains of the cell phone has been freely roaming into and out of their siblings phones.

Recovering a sense of self and worth is a long hard process particularly if you sold out to yourself a long time ago. Just need to figure out how to do it. 

Ahhh, Ummm, Errrr....

Well I did it! I joined "Toastmasters" and after a month of being a guest, I am now a card carrying book toting fully fledged member of the Protea Toastmasters Club. On Tuesday I will be performing my very first duty as an official member of the club. I shall be, and I say so with much chest puffing and the like....the oh ever so important...Um and Aah Counter! Next Tuesday, I shall count every um and ah and err escaping the lips of those speakers and will be required to give a full report on these infractions at the end of the meeting. I'll be the Mr Plod of Speechland.

Each week we have a series of "table topics" which really are impromptu speeches delivered on the spur of the moment. After the speeches are completed we vote for the best speech and yours truly won! My topic? My favourite colour, which led me directly onto the topic of chocolate, which led me directly to the prize....a slab of chocolate! What this woman will do for chocolate! 

Windsongs of Joy

My studies require a lot of self reflection and thought. Iv'e been thinking in parts of my brain that have probably never been used before. One reflection activity asked me to write down 50 things that make me happy. Eish!

It sounds deceptively easy, but I suspect that this  list will be collected one at a time over a few weeks as I notice moments of flow. 

So today let me record todays one. #1: Flying a kite. I went to the kite festival today with N and D and D's girlfriend. We wandered around looking at all the kites. I decided I would buy one, a real beginners kite called an Ollie. It looks a little like a jelly fish. It was a lovely bright purple colour. We took turns flying the kite. It was such a happy moment standing on the field with lots of other kite flyers, my kite soaring and dipping and diving and crash landing on the field. 

My thanks go to the Chinese who apparently invented the kite, largely due to their abundance of silk and bamboo. Thanks guys. Just goes to show how important it is to use what you already have.  

I'm a student !

It finally arrived! When I got home from school on Thursday, a huge brown cardboard box was waiting for me on the dining room table. In it was all the materials for the course I ordered from "New Insights". I am now studying to be a life coach. I am pretty excited and look forward to having 2 careers, 2 dogs, 5 kids and hopefully many, many clients! 

Climb Ev'ry Mountain....over and over again...

Well, the very fact that I am writing this blog suggests to you, my dear, dear reader that I have survived the much anticipated and feared hike! Here follows an account, of my journey.

It took me two full days to pack for the hike. You see I had discovered the vacuum sealer machine and I was most entertained by the act of vacuum packing my undies and socks. You should try it, but be warned this is a very addictive practice. It started with me vacuum packing my daily rations for the hike. All the chocolates and sweets I had anticipated eating, this time without guilt as I would "have earned them" were sealed in little plastic baggies, so I could rip them open whenever the chocolate fever grabbed me. After every little snack was vacuum packed I searched for other things to pack. Fresh, crisp underwear and socks...I would be hiking "buisiness class" with all the necessities shrink wrapped in little bags.After that all extra clothes were shrink wrapped, did I mention how addictive all this can be? Once everything was vacuum packed I proceeded to pack all the little bits and pieces into the bag. One or two minor snags followed ( I have never been able to pack light...)  but eventually I was able to get rid of some things and keep the important ones like chocolate...

We travelled 11 hours inland to our starting destination. I pulled the bag on my back...it was quite heavy but I reminded myself that at any time I could eat my way through the kg of treats I had vacuum packed...
The first minute of hiking saw me huffing and puffing and because of the altitude, I was quite literally gasping for air. I sucked at the atmosphere like it was the bottom of a chocolate milkshake, but I was still desperate for oxygen. Ten paces into the hike and I was already in line for a heart attack...Luckily, it turned out to be the high altitude and within 10 minutes I was walking alright again.

The first day was alright, I was tired and very aware that I was unfit, but I was already planning my next hike. "Next hike I am going to be a lot fitter.." I arrived to the camp 14 km's later, at sunset but in good spirits. Supper around a roaring fire and good fireside conversation followed. Marshmallows were the treat of the day and I wryly noted that I didn't crack open a single treat the entire day. I had walked all day, sipping my Mexican water bottle.( Just water - I promise) Exercise had curbed my chocolate cravings. Go figure.

The second day saw us hopelessly and completely lost there had been a mix up at the front desk and we had been told to double back to a certain hut on the first day of the hike, it added over half and hour to our labours, but didn't seem at all relevant. What we should have been told was to double back to the hut on day two,or "you will most certainly get lost." Which we did.  It's bad enough taking your lardy heinie up and down marked trails, but it loses it's savour when you are just running in circles going nowhere.

Eventually I suggested we go down to the road and ask one of the service vehicles to tell us where to go or give us a lift to the hut. Unfortunately my hiking partner was overcome by the spirit of Dr Livingstone and we forged on for several hours longer covering the same mountain side like the Grand Ole Duke of York , marching up and down, much to the amusement of the odd Eland loping over the craggy hilltop. After a further three hours, I would have understood if those 10 thousand men had staged a mutiny and had shot that Grand Ole Duke execution style. My sense of humour had left me.

It was eventually decided to head to the road. I sulkily loped down the mountainside, my ankles twisting over all the stupid idiotic rocks. By the time we had reached the road, the service vehicles had left and we were two lone fools heading in one direction on the tar. My partner, Dr Livingstone, decided we should sing hymns.    I scolded her roughly for even suggesting it, so she sang merrily along while I rehearsed a scene or two from Scrooge trudging grumpily behind...Bah Humbug!

We phoned for help on the emergency line and "Paul" arrived in his white pickup to load us to safety. We drove for over half and hour and I was so incredibly thrilled to be back to civilisation and warm baths and all the comforts of life as I knew it. Would I do it again? Yes, but I think with a crowd of people and a hiking trail that is reliably marked and I would try to be a little fitter. Am I glad I did it, Yes. I am.

It Gets Easier...is that a good thing?

Roger drove his dusty Mahindra into the driveway this morning to load up all the children. I was in my purple spotty flannel jammies, pink bathrobe, green fluffy socks and slippers. My hair had that tousled untouched au naturel  look about it. One of my more veteran divorced friends told me always to look your best when you see your ex and make sure your house is spotless. I have followed her advice up until this point. I would wake up early, feverishly tidy and scrub the house, straighten my hair and put on make-up. When he left, I would still feel like the food left on a plate, just before it gets scraped off into the garbage or the dogs bowl. The sloppy leftovers!

Instead this time I noticed, he had "man boobs" - did he have them before? I can't really remember. He was looking washed out and although his biceps looked slightly bigger I couldn't make out whether they were fatter or more muscular.He had what looked like a small varicose vein popping out of his left upper bicep. As he lowered his chin a grand double chin appeared all speckled with salt and pepper stubble. ( Does one applaud at these moments? It was an impressive one, I couldn't keep my eyes off it.)

He has asked me before to make lunch for these car trips. I had always made an excuse as to why I couldn't, but the truth was, I felt something akin to outrage at his asking. Am I still your wife? Making packed lunches for your trip? I wasn't about to do anything that would benefit the old git. Nasty, nasty, nasty!

This time, I needed no prompting and it was a pleasure going shopping and deciding what yummy treats to pack for Roger and the kids.I decided on chicken mayo rolls, apple, yogurt, a handful of chocolates, some biltong ( a little like beef jerky), a granola bar, a bag of sweets and a bag of Fritos. I labelled each bag with care as well as the bottle of flavoured water. For "breakfast on the road" I made "Egg Mc Muffins" which they could all eat in his car. I enjoyed being of service to him and the children. I didn't at any time consider whether I had a little anti-freeze in the garage or some rattex in the cupboard, I swear. No poisonous thoughts lurked behind the stage curtains of my mind.

As the dusty old car eventually moved inch by inch out of the gate, with a huge trailer in tow - I felt every bit the amazing diva in my mismatched fluffiness. Usually I would be beside myself with grief at having an empty house, no-one to make a mess and leave mugs of half drunk Milo on all surfaces. No-one rolling their eyes at me or trying on an outfit and then putting it in the laundry basket. No I was quite alone and content and happy that the kids gone to spend good time with their dad and his Fluff.

So - I can see progress, which is great. I feel much better about myself in his presence and I feel great about the direction my life is taking. This forty-something year old, isn't about to wallow in self pity about being the spare parts left after an upgrade, instead , my life is becoming more my own and less a reaction to Roger and his shenanigans. PROGRESS. SUCH PROGRESS!

WHY? I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I am making strides to build another life for myself. I am going to start studying next term. My books and materials should come by the thirtieth and then I begin the journey towards being a life coach. I finally plucked up the courage to phone "Toastmasters" and will begin honing my public speaking skills.I'm going up to Johannesburg to see about a parenting course I am planning to give. I'm walking, I'm toddling, I'm crawling, but I'm moving forwards and THAT has made all the difference in the world!